Newsbytes - Internationa…ews 1983 May to 1994 June/Newsbytes - International Computing Industry News 1994 Edition - May 1983 - June 1994 - Wayzata Technologies (5045) (1994).iso/mac/Text/Mac Text/1988/nb880412.251

Text File | 1991-08-18 | 61KB | 1,268 lines

[***][4/12/88][***]
XANADU PROJECT WILL "CHANGE THE WORLD" SAYS AUTODESK
SAN FRANCISCO (NB) -- Ted Nelson, author of "Computer Lib" and
inventor of the term "hypertext" back in 1960, says he has reached
the first "new stage in 27 years of life" by signing an agreement to
sell 80% of his Xanadu company to Autodesk of Sausalito, Ca.
Xanadu is a project Nelson has launched to create a new way of
viewing and comparing data without the restrictions of current
file systems.  Eventually the project is designed to create a
"global library" accessible by all types of computers and searchable
through hypertext technology.

In the surprise announcement, Autodesk has become the 20+-year-old
project's first "angel." Convinced Nelson's idea has finally come of
age, Autodesk is financing the project and its seven programmers
for an undisclosed fee.  The troop promises to have its first product
born of the alliance within just 18 months -- no small feat
considering they are for all practical purposes still working from
scratch.

Nelson's right-hand man, Roger Gregory, told a packed news
conference that "There's just one thing left to do -- the simple
matter of software."  There were plenty of jokes going around,
but the bottom line was serious.  Autodesk is betting that Nelson's
Xanadu hypertext system, in the words of Autodesk Chairman John
Walker, "will begin to change the world."

[***][4/12/88][***]
WEST COAST COMPUTER FAIRE REPORT
SAN FRANCISCO (NB) -- The 13th annual West Coast Computer Faire
is the largest since the Interface Group took over the event in
1985.  Some 600 booths were rented, compared to 530 last year.
40,000 people are expected to crowd the Moscone Center for
the event.  While the Faire seldom generates any "big announcements"
it always provides a forum for interesting new products.  Among
this year's...

DATAQUEST'S GUIDES FOR PC BUYERS AND SELLERS
 ...........The San Jose, Ca.-based market research firm rented its
first Faire booth to show its new "Consumer Reports"-type guides
to personal computers, printers, and fax machines.  The "SpecCheck"
guides, published four times a year, will compare virtually all
brands available, providing suggested prices, system characteristics,
physical description, maintenance arrangements, and options.  What
the guides DO NOT do is rate or recommend one brand over another.
The cost is $95/year and the "SpecCheck" guides appear to be a
must for PC sellers as well as buyers.  CONTACT:  Steve Moreno,
DATAQUEST, 408-437-8236.

[***][4/12/88][***]
A GUIDE THROUGH THE JUNGLE OF PC MANAGEMENT
   ........PC MANAGEMENT LETTER is a new newsletter from consultant/
author Lew Purdue, designed to set MIS types straight on the
latest technology and its pitfalls.  The first issue reports on IBM's
PS/2 line, going where others have feared to tread by saying
it's an "expensive, over-promoted, highly complicated, relatively slow,
confusing, inflexible system."  There are also articles about
tripling hard disk speed for less than $100, and protecting data
from invasion by viruses.  Entertaining, as well as informative
monthly reading at $96/year.  CONTACT:  Lewis Purdue, 415/935-1950.

[***][4/12/88][***]
The IBM AT CLONE BUYER'S GUIDE AND HANDBOOK
  ............ is hot off the press and available from the author by mail-
order.  It's a 400-page comparison and rating of the AT clones on the
market. The guide is the sequel to the IBM XT CLONE BUYER'S GUIDE,
called "highly recommended for anyone contemplating getting a
computer," by author Jerry Pournelle.  The book, published by
Modular Information Systems of San Francisco and written by
Edwin Rutsch, is $24.95.  CONTACT:  MIS, 415/552-8648.

[***][4/12/88][***]
TELETEXT BOARD FOR A PC
  ....A small Morgan Hill, California firm called ATI or American Teletext
has an add-in board for a PC which allows you to read teletext
broadcasts from cable, satellite, or broadcast signals, on your
personal computer.  Why, do you ask, would one want to do this?
Well, stations throughout the country are experimenting with
broadcasts of teletext, in which one can find free weather, stock
quotes, news, even traffic reports, in the vertical blanking interval, or
unused portion of the broadcast bandwidth.  There are four
national teletext services currently available, the largest of
which are Electra and Tempo from Superstation WTBS.   In the Bay
Area,  teletext transmissions are made by TV╩36 KICU and KOVR,
Channel 13.

The only other ways to receive these teletext broadcasts are via
a special TV-top decoder or with a new Zenith Digital System 3
Tv set which has a built-in decoder.

The PC board costs less than $400, but company officers admit the
market for such a board is just in its infancy.  The major hurdle is
getting both more TV stations and advertisers to support teletext
transmissions.

By the way, the teletext broadcast is made a 56,000 bits per second
or 56K baud.  The lightening fast speed enables the transmission of
hundreds of pages of data per second.  Consequently it takes only
a moment to receive a particular "page" you select with your computer;
the system waits the fraction of a second it takes to receive it,
then "grabs" it for your viewing.

CONTACT:  Bob Evans, ATI, 4408/778-7722

[***][4/12/88][***]
TWO MAGZ MISSING -- HYPERAGE AND THE INPUTER * EXCLUSIVE *
   ............Despite its gala roll-out at the January 1988
MacWorld Expo, HYPERAGE magazine was nowhere to be found at this
year's West Coast Computer Faire, even though the show guide listed
it as occupying a booth. HYPERAGE had impressed everyone with its
slick format, its luminary authors -- Ted Nelson, Danny Goodman, to
name a couple -- it's influential editor, industry analyst Jan Lewis,
and its cover story on Apple CEO John Sculley.  All copies at the show
were snapped up and subscription money was too.  But the magazine's
bright future threatens to become history if a dispute between Jan
Lewis and copublisher Andrew Wolf is not resolved soon.  NEWSBYTES has
learned the partners are engaged in a lawsuit.  Lewis filed a suit
against Wolf on the 18th of March for breach of contract, fraud,
accounting, and dissolution of partnership.

While the litigation continues, there have been no further HYPERAGE
issues since the January premier and NEWSBYTES has learned many of
the writers and bills have not been paid by Andrew Wolf, the financer
of the venture.

Due to the litigation, Jan Lewis is mum on the suit, and Andrew Wolf,
who is said to be on vacation in Florida, was unreachable for comment.
No word on what will happen to those who shelled out the $20 each for
a one-year subscription.

At least one publication was pleased at the publication's absence.
HYPERLINK magazine, another how-to bi-monthly devoted to the Apple
product, made its debut. One year is $25 from HYPERLINK Magazine,
PO Box 7723, Eugene, Oregon 97401  [phone].

Meanwhile, THE INPUTER, which tried to be a national COMPUTER SHOPPER-type
tabloid early this year, has gone belly up as has its parent company.
Capstone Publishing of Montgomery, Alabama, has filed for
bankruptcy.

[***][4/12/88][***]
TRINTEX' PRODIGY SERVICE MAKES TRADE SHOW DEBUT
   .................Sears and IBM are nearly ready to roll out
their new online venture Prodigy and used the West Coast Computer
Faire as its public debut.  Slated to be made publicly available later
this year in Atlanta, Hartford, and San Francisco, it should make its
appearance in most major US markets within two years.  The service
is accessible via a PC equipped with Hayes modem and special
software which livens up the screen display.  A number of services
are already online including news, shopping, popular columnists,
electronic mail, and airline reservation systems.   But services such
as home banking have not been signed up yet.  The service will be
supported both by the flat end-user fee of $9.95 per month and by
money from advertisers, whose ads will appear on various screens
of the service.

CONTACT:  Brian Ek, Spokesman, PRODIGY, 914-993-8843

[***][4/12/88][***]
IN OTHER NEWS...

MICROSOFT ADMITS BUSINESS SUFFERING FROM APPLE LAWSUIT
REDMOND, Wa. (NB) -- Microsoft has gone on the offensive against
Apple Computer because, it says, of mounting losses directly attributable
to the lawsuit Apple filed against it.  This information comes in
a complaint Microsoft filed in U.S. District Court, San Jose (4/7)
which states that Microsoft seeks unspecified damages as a result
of losses from the suit.  No dollar amount of damages or
losses were stated but Microsoft accuses Apple of slander of its
title to Windows 2.03 and interference with Microsoft's relationship
with its customers.

Microsoft further denies Apple's charges that Windows 2.03 violates
Apple's copyright on its visual interface.  "Visual displays, including
graphic images, in which Apple has claimed copyright protection
are not original to Apple and thus are not copyrightable," says
the complaint.

[***][4/12/88][***]
MORE MUSICAL CHAIRS AT APPLE
CUPERTINO, Ca. (NB) -- Apple Computer has launched yet another phase
of the reorganization that started last year in its marketing and sales
organizations.  Three new groups have been formed -- Apple USA,
Apple Europe, and Apple Pacific -- to reportedly give Apple a
stronger foothold in the corporate marketplace.  The biggest change
is taking place in Apple's domestic sales and marketing organization
which is being subdivided further into six more units.  Apple has
also created a special division to tailor Apple technology to the
specific needs of individual corporate clients.  It is called the
End User Services Group.  All of this is making retailers a bit
nervous.  They fear the inevitable -- that Apple will take sales away
from them in order to directly deliver product to corporations.

[***][4/12/88][***]
SUN MICROSYSTEMS' NEW 80386 WORKSTATION -- BUT DON'T CALL IT A PC!
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Ca. (NB) -- Want Unix and DOS at the same time?  No
problem.  Sun Microsystems has just introduced its first Unix and
DOS-running 32-bit workstation based on Intel's 80386 microprocessor.
The 386i series, ranging in price from $8,000 to $14,000, is yet
another carrot Sun is offering to businesses to lure them into the
Unix market.  The move also signals a sudden boldness on the part
of Sun Microsystems to take on Big Blue itself whose PS/2 line is
based around Intel's microprocessors.

[***][4/12/88][***]
IN BRIEF --

AST RESEARCH, Irvine, Ca., will delay shipment of its Mac86 PC
coprocessing board for the Macintosh SE until the third quarter of this
year.  The reason for the delay is that AST continues to make further
improvements to the board, according to David Troup, AST product
marketer.

EVEREX SYSTEMS, Fremont, Ca., has introduced a 5 MIPS personal
computer, saying it is now the manufacturer of the fastest 80386-
based system on the market.  The Step 386/20 is termed "an
incredible powerhouse," by industry reviewer Bernie Zilbergeld
and Ron Kaufman in the March 21 issue of COMPUTER CURRENTS.

INTEL CORPORATION says its earnings leaped 262% in its last quarter,
buoyed by demand for its 80386 chips.  This towering figure has led
some analysts to suggest this will be a record-breaking year for Intel.

MICROSOFT, Redmond, Wa., has shipped the latest update of OS/2
Software Development Kit.  It not only contains a prerelease version
of OS/2 version 1.1, but development tools for OS/2 Presentation
Manager applications.

SIMPLE-NET, Brea, California, will introduce the industry's first 25
megahertz 386-based computer and promises to have 100 machines
available for shipping on July 1.



[***][4/12/88][***]
RACE TO CREATE PS/2 CLONES COMES INTO THE OPEN
FT. WORTH (NB) -- As NEWSBYTES has reported, Dell Computer of
Austin, TX and Tandy Corp. of Ft. Worth, TX are racing to be
first to market with a clone of the IBM PS/2. What's new is that
IBM is apparently preparing a statement clarifying its legal
position on the copyright issues swirling around the PS/2, and
the possibilities of cloning it. Tandy scheduled a news
conference to announce "something new" for April 21, in New York
-- Dell is reportedly aiming for an announcement April 18 or 19.
Tandy's is supposed to put out a Model 80 clone, Dell a less-
powerful Model 50 clone. Chips + Technologies and Western Digital
have already prepared PS/2 clone chip sets -- even Intel is
reportedly into the market.

IBM clarified its position a little in a release April 8. An IBM
spokesman told NEWSBYTES that IBM is raising its maximum license
fees to 5% of a product's price, from a maximum of 1%, but all
PS/2 patents are available for license. However (and this is the
tricky part), copyrights, chip masks, trademarks and exterior
designs are not available for license. So, any PS/2 clone maker,
to avoid an IBM legal challenge, would be paying Big Blue up to
5% of his clone income, and still would not be totally out of the
woods. Clear?

[***][4/12/88][***]
NEWSLETTERS AND MAGAZINES NOW HAVE A PC SYSTEM FOR PICTURES
MARIETTA, GA (NB) -- A joint announcement by Z-SOFT, Marietta,
GA, DP-TEK, Wichita, KS and AT&T launched a $3,350 system which
can let you scan 64-level gray scale photographs into a DOS-based
PC, edit them and print them out with 1200 dots per inch quality
on an ordinary laser printer. Z-Soft makes PC Paintbrush, a
graphics program, DP-Tek a board which plugs into laser printers,
and AT&T makes both PCs and scanners. President Mark Zachmann of
Z-Soft explained the workings of it to NEWSBYTES. "The DP-Tek
portion of it is an add-in for laser printers which creates
output much better than 300 dots per inch -- it's really running
at about 1200 dpi. That's why the gray scale looks so good. The
AT&T system with our software will print to PostScript, and the
DP-Tek gives you a good proofing system." Magazines or newspapers
could import photos with the system, cut them to size on the PC,
use the DP-Tek board for proofing, then output to a PostScript
printer at up to 2,630 dots per inch. Newsletters can turn into
mini-versions of "The New York Times" (which also prints photos
in black-and-white only) with the system as-is.

CONTACT: Mark Zachmann, Z-SOFT, [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
INTERGRAPH TO PUT AT&T SYSTEM V UNIX ON ITS CLIPPER CHIP
HUNTSVILLE, AL (NB) -- Intergraph Corp., the "other" workstation
company now in the chip business, signed a deal to create a
machine-level connection between Intergraph's Clipper chip and
AT&T's Unix System V standard.  The result is that the Clipper
will be as Unix-compatible as possible. AT&T agreed to share
its changes in Unix with Intergraph. (The Clipper is a 32-bit
RISC chip running at 33 MHz which claims a performance level
faster than the DEC VAX 8600.) Intergraph shipped over 11,000 of
its Clipper chips in 1987.

CONTACT: David Joffrion, INTERGRAPH, [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
CROSSTALK ISSUES NEW REMOTE
ROSWELL, GA (NB) -- DCA's Crosstalk division, as expected, has
released Remote 2, a new version of its old Remote program used
to operate a PC remotely. The idea is to let you use your office
PC from home, or to let the guy who's handling your office's
computer software get into it for updates, or to let your
salesmen update their own records from the road. Older versions
of this program weren't quite as good as advertised, reportedly
because Crosstalk bought rights to someone else's program and
didn't have its crack programming staff, led by Jeff Garbers,
write it from scratch. Hopefully this package, priced at under
$200, or $130 if you just need the Host program, will do the
trick.

CONTACT: Les Freed, CROSSTALK, [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
POINT OF SALE BREAKTHROUGH AS PUBLIX BUYS BANK CARD TERMINALS
LAKELAND, FL (NB) -- The idea that people would use their plastic
bank "money machine" cards to create a checkless society has
always gone a-glimmering, mainly because merchants wouldn't buy
the often-expensive terminals needed to go online with the bank's
money-machine network. Now one such money machine network, HONOR
in Florida, has convinced Florida's largest supermarket chain,
Publix, to put POS terminals in all its 340 stores after two
years of testing the concept, so customers can buy groceries with
their money machine cards. Since the cards withdraw money
directly from your bank account, it's even safer than a check,
and it's supposed to speed up the check-out lines. The terminals
will take a year to install. Winn Dixie, Florida's second-largest
supermarket chain, said it is still thinking about buying point-
of-sale terminals.

[***][4/12/88][***]
PECAN GOLDEN CHIPS

ASHER EDELMAN of DATAPOINT, San Antonio, TX, wants to take the
company private for $6 per share, or $60 million. Citicorp and
KBA Partners of New Jersey are helping him in the offer.

CONTROL DATA, Minneapolis, raised its stake in Micrognosis of
Danbury, CT from 75% to 97%. Micrognosis makes computerized
trading systems for banks, brokers and financiers. Separately,
publication of its frank annual report, which foresees
"difficult" times ahead, fueled takeover rumors.

[***][4/12/88][***]
PECAN CHIPS

AHMET ERBIL of GEORGIA TECH, Atlanta, continues to defend his 500
degree superconductor, despite widespread skepticism. He told a
Georgia Tech magazine he found the effect in only a small part of
a grain of superconductor with fluoride substituted for oxygen,
and copper, more yttrium and barium than other samples. He said
he'll need much more money to study his sample further.

DAC SOFTWARE, Dallas, will port its Dac Easy accounting program
to the Macintosh this summer as Dac Easy Light.

DCA, Alpharetta, GA, is integrating its LANs and multiplexors
with the DCA LAN-Net family of products, with a wide-are network
under TCP/IP providing access to Ethernet-based LANs over DCA
Series 300 processors.

DELL COMPUTER, Austin, will announce 3 new 80286 and 80386-based
PCs April 18, running on the IBM PC AT bus. The company will ship
a version of OS/2 this month, however, and it cut prices on its
old System 300 line by $1,000.

MOTOROLA, Schaumburg, IL, won a big order from Stratus Computer
of Marlboro, MA, which said it will make its new fault-tolerant
transactions processors with the Motorola 88000 RISC chip.

OVONIC IMAGING SYSTEMS, Troy, MI, said its New Paperchase
program lets you scan text, photos and graphics into a database
with extensive cross-referencing. It costs $700. [phone]

UNISYS, Detroit, released a new mid-level mainframe called the
System 80 Model 15, at $130,000. A new family of peripherals for
Unisys mainframes was also introduced.

WORDPERFECT, Oren UT, began shipping its Unix version of
WordPerfect 4.2. Prices range from $1,000 to $2,500, depending on
the computer you use.

ZYLAB, Arlington Heights, IL, launched release 3.0 of its ZyINDEX
program, which includes an AutoIndex feature which organizes your
searches for you at the end of the day.

[***][4/12/88][***]
SOURCEVOID'S ADVENTURES IN ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY *EXCLUSIVE*
COLORADO CITY, CO (NB) -- Dave Hughes, once known to users of
PARTI on The Source as Sourcevoid, is a big believer in what's
called Electronic Democracy, using computers to get people into
discussing issues with one another and improving democracy.

Critics dismiss this as starry-eyed idealism, but Mr. Hughes has
both feet on the ground, and both fingers on his keyboard. Almost
2 years ago he gave birth to Big Sky Telegraph, a Western Montana
University-based system using an in-state 800 number and Caucus
II software which drew, by his reckoning, 1,600 calls in its
first 40 days of operation, with over 60% of the Montana
residents leaving messages. Once he installed the system, he
reported on the Meta Network, the whole thing was run by former
non-computer users, who within six months were starting to use
things like UUCP mail, and global Usenet news feeds, which only
the really cool dudes in Big Laboratories and Universities who
use Unix use. He frankly predicts that "there is a distinct
possibility that the *rural* areas of the world will become far
more 'telecommunications literate' faster, than the urban
centers. Because rural people know the necessity, and costs, of
'communications.'

His latest venture, SpaceNet, is an expansion of this theme. It
required him to get a commercial packet radio license so he could
use ham radio frequencies for a computer conferencing system
which bypasses the phone system entirely. Apparently, he writes,
this upset the ham radio community no-end, since it brought non-
hams (disguised as bits and bytes) onto "their" bandwidth.
(Never mind whether they were using it.) That system went up
very recently, and you talk to him about it with a modem call to
his Old Colorado City Electronic Cottage (as he calls it) at 303-
632-3391 or with a message to DAVE HUGHES on the Meta Network.


[***][4/12/88][***]
TORONTO-AREA FIRM MARKETING MUNICIPAL INQUIRY SOFTWARE FOR PC
TORONTO (NB) -- Chappell & Associates Inc. of Toronto plans
worldwide marketing for MIMS, a PC-based software package it
developed to help the city of Scarborough, Ont., handle
complaints and inquiries for its residents.  Scarborough, a
suburb of Toronto, provided some financial help for development
of the software.

MIMS stands for Municipal Inquiry Administration and Management
System.  The software which runs on an IBM PC, PS/2 or
compatible, costs C$9,475 in a single-user version and C$14,750
in a multiuser form.  It is designed for telephone operators who
take calls from the public concerning broken street lights, road
repairs and other problems that need the municipality's
attention.  The system can send a work order to a supervisor or
the appropriate works yard, and keeps track of what has been done
about each problem.  It also checks new inquiries against
previous calls to avoid duplication of effort.  Features for
handling bylaw enforcement, special garbage pickup and snow
removal are also included, according to Chappell & Associates
president Ross Chappell, and the system can provide statistics on
the types of calls received and the performance of individual
operators.

Chappell said his company is negotiating sales with several
municipalities in Canada and the U.S., but Scarborough is the
only one using the software to date.

CONTACT: CHAPPELL & ASSOCIATES, [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
PAPER, PROGRAM MODULE CAN HELP PREVENT SOFTWARE PIRACY
MONTREAL (NB) -- Copy-protecting software wasn't the solution to
software piracy, as most major software developers have
acknowledged by dropping copy-protection schemes.  Software
Services Unlimited has a couple of alternatives.

Software Services Unlimited is the distributor to the software
industry of NoCopi paper, a photosensitive paper that cannot be
photocopied.  Developed by Nocopi Inc. of Toronto, the paper has
various security applications, but one use is for printing
software documentation.  Making the documentation impossible to
photocopy greatly complicates life for software pirates.

Software Services Unlimited's president, Mel Leitman, says his
company has also developed a software module that can be inserted
in commercial programs to prevent piracy through a code-number
system.  When the program is run it asks for a code number which
must be looked up in a small code book.  The code book itself is
printed on NoCopi paper so it can't be copied.  Leitman says this
product, called BlockOut, will prevent even those who know the
program too well to need manuals from running pirated programs.
BlockOut isn't in use in any commercial packages so far, although
Leitman said Sir-Tech Software uses a similar idea in a recently
released game program.

CONTACT: SOFTWARE SERVICES UNLIMITED, Montreal, Que.,
         [phone]

         NOCOPI INC., 50 Avenue Rd., Toronto, Ont.,
         [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
VERTICAL SOFTWARE MARKETER OPENS U.S. BRANCH
TORONTO (NB) -- Jedron Software Inc. has opened a Northeastern
U.S. branch in Archbald, Pa., to market WeldPak, the firm's
vertical-market software for the welding supply and distribution
business.  Jedron has more than 30 WeldPak installations in the
U.S. and Canada.  The software handles a variety of functions
peculiar to the welding supply and gas distribution industry.
The new office is located at 1 Kerry Lane, Archbald, PA 18403,
telephone [phone], and its manager is Bill Mullen, who has
more than 30 years sales experience with Burroughs, Unisys and
other computer vendors.

CONTACT: JEDRON SOFTWARE INC., 1041 McNicoll Ave., Scarborough,
         Ont. M1W 3W6, [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
NEWBRIDGE NETWORKS MAKES SERIES OF ANNOUNCEMENTS
KANATA, Ont. (NB) -- Newbridge Networks Corp. has announced an
assortment of new communications products and added features for
existing products.

Additional features for Newbridge's 3600 Mainstreet Bandwidth
Manager, a multiplexor for T1 lines, include: subrate
multiplexing to put multiple low-speed channels in one time slot;
integral statistical multiplexing to make more asynchronous ports
available; protection switching to let a node use spare capacity
on an alternate route when its primary connection is lost; the
Network Control Interface, a published specification to give any
network management system access to Newbridge equipment; the
Control Packet Switching System to allows commands and alarms to
flow through the network; and an Integral Channel Service Unit,
also compatible with the Mainstreet Intelligent T1 Channel Bank,
to eliminate "holes" in network management.

Newbridge also added auto-configuration capabilities to its 1082
Mainstreet Data Controller, so that modems and other devices can
be connected without worrying about operation settings.  And the
1082 now has the option of one megabyte of spooling capacity for
ports that need it.  On the software front, Newbridge introduced
EasyStreet Net1, a RAM-resident program which, the company says,
gives DOS users many powerful networking capabilities without
disrupting normal DOS operation.  Capabilities include printer
redirection, network connections with one keystroke, wildcard
binary file transfer, terminal emulation, background operation
and user-programmable scripts.

Newbridge is providing the specifications for access to its
Network Control Interface (NCI) to interested software
developers, in hopes they will create application software to
work with Newbridge's networking products.

Newbridge, which develops networking hardware and software, has
offices in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong
Kong and West Germany.

CONTACT: NEWBRIDGE NETWORKS CORP., P.O. Box 13600, Kanata, Ont.,
         K2K 2E6, [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
SYSTEMHOUSE HAS DEAL WITH CULLINET
OTTAWA (NB) -- SHL Systemhouse Inc. has concluded an agreement
with Cullinet Software Inc. under which the two companies will
work together to bid on major computer contracts in Canada and
the U.S.  The agreement covers contracts involving Digital
Equipment Corp. hardware.  Systemhouse, which assembles large
information systems, currently makes about 60 per cent of its
sales in the American market, and about 25 per cent of its
business involves DEC hardware.  Systemhouse will acquire
software from Cullinet for use in developing systems for its
clients, but the Ottawa firm is not precluded from buying
software from any other supplier.  Systemhouse will also be
licensed to sell Cullinet software for IBM mainframe computers.

CONTACT: SHL SYSTEMHOUSE INC., [phone]

[***][4/12/88][***]
BITS, EH?
-- BMB COMPUSCIENCE CANADA LTD., Toronto, reports net income of
C$374,394 in the nine months ended January 31, down from
C$473,290 in the same period a year earlier.  Revenues fell from
C$2.1 million to C$1.67 million. BMB develops and sells personal
computer software.

-- DESKTOP PUBLISHING was too time-consuming for the editor of -
30-, the newsletter of the National Editors and Writers' Society
-- Business (NEWS Business) in Toronto.  After publishing several
issues with a DTP system, the newsletter has gone back to simpler
methods, and the editor, Scott Olson, notes in the latest issue
that while the finished product doesn't look as sharp, the
newsletter is taking much less time to produce.




[***][4/12/88][***]
CANON GETS A LICENSE TO MAKE PS/2 COMPATIBLE TECHNOLOGY
TOKYO (NB) -- Canon has received a license to use IBM's Micro
Channel architecture from Computer Automation in the U.S.,
which holds the patent.  The patent is called the Automatic Modular Memory
Address Allocation System.  The architecture is essential for
developing peripherals units and clones of IBM's PS/2 series.

Canon has announced it will first develop laser printers for
the PS/2 line, using this technology.  As it is the largest manufacturer
of laser printers, Canon is currently supplying them to Hewlett Packard
and Apple in the U.S. on an OEM basis.  Based on this agreement,
it's fair to say that Canon will continue to fly high in the field of
laser printers.

CONTACT: Canon, 3-30-3 Shimo-Maruko, Ohta-ku, Tokyo 146

[***][4/12/88][***]
NEC RELEASES MODIFIED/UPGRADED V-SERIES CHIP
TOKYO (NB) -- Japanese computer giant NEC has developed a V33
microprocessing unit (MPU), which is an upgraded version of its
V30 MPU.  NEC claims V33 has a processing speed of 2.8 million
instructions per second (MIPS).  That's approximately four times
faster than the original V30 MPU, which is compatible with Intel's
80286 MPU.  Also this 16-bit chip, V33, runs at 16 megahertz.
A maximum 16 megabyte memory could be supported by this V33.

The most significant thing about this latest V-series chip is
it does not have the program codes, which are currently the
bone of contention with Intel Corp.  Intel sued NEC almost three
years ago, claiming parts of V30's microcode violate Intel's copyright.
Apparently, NEC has become impatient and could not wait for the
final court decision.  So it seems NEC has sought its quick remedy
to raise this chip from the ashes.  Samples of the V33 are scheduled to
be shipped for 20,000 yen ($160) in May.

CONTACT: NEC, 1-4-28 Mita, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108

[***][4/12/88][***]
CPU BOARD FOR UPGRADING 16-BIT PC TO 32-BIT PC
TOKYO (NB) -- CAL, Tokyo, has developed its 32-bit add-on CPU
board PC386D, and its affiliated firm Wacom released the board
on April 1.  PC386D can be used to upgrade NEC's 16-bit personal
computer the PC-9800 series, to a 32-bit machine, processing
approximately four times faster.

PC386D has a 16MHz 80386 microprocessing unit, an 80387 co-
processor, and a 2 megabyte memory on board. The basic system
board is priced at 298,000 yen or $2400.

CONTACT: Wacom, Wada Bldg. 5F, 4-455-6 Ikebukuro, Toshima-ku,
         Tokyo 171

[***][4/12/88][***]
FAMICON SOFTWARE HOUSE SUES MAGAZINE PUBLISHER
TOKYO (NB) -- Tokyo-based software house Enix has sued a weekly
entertainment magazine publisher in Tokyo District Court for
allegedly infringing on the copyright for its game software which
runs on the Famicon game machine.

According to Enix, Kobunsha Publishing (Tokyo) has introduced
clues and the final stage photo for Enix' adventure game Dragon
Quest III, without permission.  Enix is seeking a $8,900 damage
fee in this lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Enix won a similar suit against another Tokyo publisher
in February 1987.  The suit concerned the game's predecessor, Dragon
Quest II.   At that time, the Tokyo District Court told the
publisher to withdraw the clue-filled game magazine from the shelves
of bookstores across the nation.  So it is seen as very likely that Enix
will also win this time.

A whopping 2.5 million copies of Dragon Quest III have been sold
in the last few months. An average game player spends 50 to 60 hours to
get to the final stage of this adventure game.

CONTACT: Enix, Shinjuku-Airisu Bldg. 7F, 8-20-2 Nishi-Shinjuku,
         Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160

[***][4/12/88][***]
FAST AND LOW-COST TRANSLATION THROUGH VAN
TOKYO (NB) -- Fujitsu F.I.P., a joint venture of Fujitsu and
C.ITOH, has started a document translation service through a
value added network (VAN).  Here's how it works.  A client types
a Japanese document, then the translation system automatically
translates the document into English, using the electronic mail
system of the company's VAN.  After that, a human translator
corrects the copy, and then the translation system sends it
back to the client through the VAN.

CONTACT: Fujitsu F.I.P., 6-1-11 Shinbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo

[***][4/12/88][***]
COMMUNICATION TOKYO '88 REPORT
TOKYO (NB) -- Telecommunication equipment exhibition
Communication Tokyo was held at Harumi, Tokyo.  The list of
exhibited products include TV phones, high-speed facsimile
machines, and satellite-based telecommunication systems.  Most
of them are based on the Integrated Services Digital Network
(ISDN) architecture.  Among others, IBM Japan has shown
products based on its integrated system architecture SNA, as
well as ISDN.  A total of 127 exhibitors have participated in the
show this year.

[***][4/12/88][***]
<<< SUSHI BYTES >>>

FUJITSU SUPPLIES JAPANESE OS/2 FOR ITS PC -- Fujitsu will ship
Japanese OS/2 for its FM-R personal computer to about 30 software
developers at the end of this month.   The software includes the
tools and program languages necessary for developing the
applications.  Meanwhile, NEC intends to release its Japanese
OS/2 for the end users of its PC-9801 as early as next month.

FUJITSU WILL ESTABLISH A LARGE LABORATORY -- Fujitsu will set up
a large laboratory in Makuhari, Chiba.  The construction of the
facility will start next spring, and will be completed in March
1991.  Fujitsu will mainly use the lab for developing advanced
systems for the 21st century.

FUJITSU TO DOUBLE ITS PC SALES -- Fujitsu, Tokyo, has announced
plans to sell 150,000 units of its personal computer the FM-R
series in fiscal 1988.  If it is successful, total sales will
be $400 million, which is twice as much as that of the
previous term.  But still that's only 20% of the sales of NEC
PC-9801 series.

SONY TO PRODUCE 3.5-INCH FDD IN U.S. -- Sony will manufacture a
3.5-inch floppy disk drive at its San Diego plant in California.
Sony is planning to produce 50,000 units per month.  Currently
the company has also been producing a 32-bit workstation, the
NEWS, at this plant.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR PC SOFTWARE -- The Japan Personal
Computer Software Association and the Software Publishers
Association in the U.S. will hold World Software Conference '88
in Chiba Prefecture in Japan this June.  The purpose of the
conference is to get cozier with U.S. companies.

80M HDD AND 4M 3.5-INCH FDD -- YEE Data, Tokyo, will ship its
80 megabyte hard disk and a 4 megabyte 3.5-inch FDD in May.
The prices are not known yet.

SONY HAS ENTERED PRINTING BUSINESS -- Sony has started a
printing business.  In cooperation with Koei Printing Group,
Sony has established a company, NewsCaster, for desktop publishing.
The new company will mainly use Sony's 32-bit workstation the
NEWS.

SONY ATTACHES 68030 MPUs WITH ITS WORKSTATION -- Sony has
officially announced that it will release two upgraded versions
of its engineering workstation the NEWS in July.  The system has
two 25MHz 68030 microprocessing units, and supports Unix and
Japanese language.

DAT RAIDS TO U.S. -- Aiwa, Tokyo, will supply its Digital
Audio Tape-recorder (DAT) to Florida-based communication
equipment maker Harris on an OEM basis.  Aiwa's DAT has both
recording and playing features.




[***][4/12/88][***]
THE ROAD TO RISC IS RISCY
MUNICH, WEST GERMANY (NB) -- Motorola has announced that the new
88000 RISC (reduced instruction set cpu) chip will be
available sometime next year. The details of the chip, which
have started to appear, talk of a Harvard architecture design,
on-chip register, and floating point units. What is
interesting about this chip, which will not be compatible
with today's 68000, is that it is designed to offer a
performance of 17 MIPS. 17 MIPS you say? I've heard of this
somewhere else! Yes you have. This sounds like the specifications
of the AMD 29000 RISC chip.  Funny thing about that.

[***][4/12/88][***]
APPLE SPLITS INTERNATIONAL MARKETING
PARIS, FRANCE (NB) -- Apple computer has decided to create
independent European and Asian marketing departments instead of
a previous joint division. The move comes after a year when
the European marketplace has been taking off with Apple
Macs finally showing up in various corporate locations. This
is exactly what the company was seeking in its decision to expand.
This new reorganization comes a few days after Apple announced the
opening of a new European development center which will concentrate
on communications, part of the software needed by large accounts.

[***][4/12/88][***]
VGA, WOW!
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (NB) -- Forget EGA. Forget CGA. Forget anything
you 've seen on a PC screen. How would you like Star Trek-like
graphics on your CRT! Well, if you are thinking of buying an EGA
card, then think no more. Buy a VGA card instead that has the
256 color mode and then enjoy! The VGA mode 13h which offers
256 color in a 320 x 200 resolution is magic. I have seen a
demo which has Johnny Carson (you know him, right?) looking
better than on most TVs. And the prices of VGA cards get lower by
the day. I have noticed that you can get a VGA card for about $299.
It runs EGA, CGA and VGA programs and graphics. And this is the
future.

[***][4/12/88][***]
ACER CLONE TO BE SHOWN IN SICOB IN PARIS
PARIS, FRANCE (NB) -- The ACER 1050 system, the PS/2 model 50
clone that is made in Taiwan, will be shown at the SICOB computer show
in Paris which starts on April 25th. The ACER 1050 was at the
Hannover Faire, but was hidden from view and was only shown to the
selected few. However, a company spokesman said that the 1050
may be shown at the Paris show as the license agreement has
now been finalized with IBM. This used to be the blocking element
which IBM cleared up last week.

[***][4/12/88][***]
WORLD'S FASTEST COMPUTER NOW POSSIBLE
MUNICH, GERMANY (NB) -- Have you heard of gallium arsenide? No? Well
gallium arsenide is the material that will be used to make the
supercomputers of the future that do not have speeds measured in
MIPS but is BIPS for Billion Instruction Per Second. Gallium arsenide
offers the possibility of creating a system that takes about 500ps
(half a billionth of a second) to add two numbers. This translates
to about 20 BIPS! The fact that you will be able to construct a
computer which will be at least 20 times faster than currently
available is good news for weather and space navigation which require
enormous amounts of calculation time. This is badly needed because
in this part of the world, when the weatherman says sunny it rains
and when he forecasts rain it shines!


[***][4/12/88][***]
COMPUTER SHOWS COMING UP (They will all be covered by NEWSBYTES):

COMPUTER INFO 88, April 23rd till April 26th, Amsterdam, Holland

SICOB, April 25th till April 30th, Paris, France

OEM 88, Brussels, May 3rd till May 5th, Brussels, Belgium



[***][4/12/88][***]
LOTUS AND TANDY CUT 1-2-3 DEAL
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) -- Lotus Development Corp. will be
supplying the 1-2-3 Small Business Kit to Tandy Corp.'s 700 Radio
Shack computer stores. The kit, aimed at small businesses,
includes 1-2-3, a series of special 1-2-3 templates geared
toward cash management, and specialized Lotus toll-free customer
support. "By combining 1-2-3 and toll-free support services with
commonly used applications for small business managers, we've
designed the 1-2-3 Small Business Kit so that users get up and
running faster and more easily, said Lotus Marketing Director
Peter Simon. The software has a suggested retail price of $595.

In other developments at Lotus, the company has announced new
device drivers for Freelance Plus and Graphwriter II. Included
are drivers for laser and dot matrix printers, plotters, and the
VGA graphics card. Also, Lotus has begun shipping Freelance Maps
on 3.5-inch disks.

[***][4/12/88][***]
KODAK WINS A ROUND ON DISK DUMPING
WASHINGTON (NB) -- In a major victory for Eastman Kodak's
Verbatim subsidiary, the International Trade Commission has ruled
that Japan may have been dumping 3.5-inch floppy disks on the
U.S. market. The preliminary rule paves the way for further
investigations against Sony Corp. and other Japanese companies,
and, possibly, penalty import duties. Verbatim alleged that
Japanese disks are coming onto the U.S. market at prices ranging
from 41 percent to 58 percent below the price in Japan. U.S.
imports of the disks totaled $103 million in 1987, according to
the ITC. If the ITC and its parent agency, the Commerce
Department, issue final rulings that the disks have been dumped,
with harm to U.S. producers, then penalties will follow.

[***][4/12/88][***]
AT&T PROMISES FRIENDLY UNIX
NEW YORK (NB) -- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. is announcing
a graphical interface designed to make Unix acceptable to
business users. AT&T officials told NEWSBYTES they expect the new
interface will spark the long-awaited boom in Unix for personal
computers. But the new program may also lead to legal
difficulties, if a litigious Apple takes out after AT&T as it has
Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard. The new Unix front end is a joint
product of AT&T and Sun Microsystems, according to industry
officials. Sun has recently rolled out a series of 80386 machines
which may be the first platforms for the new, friendly Unix. The
icon-based interface for Unix also is expected to work with the
unified Unix that AT&T and Sun are expected to unveil in 1989. It
will be up to the major software applications developers such as
Lotus, Microsoft, and Ashton-Tate, to create software that will
run on Unix, although there are rumors that Sun is about the spin
off an outside software firm that will write Unix applications.
AT&T says it has talked to Lotus and Ashton-Tate about their
project.

[***][4/12/88][***]
IBM OFFERS INTERLEAF PRODUCTS, HIGH QUALITY PRINTER
RYE BROOK (NB) -- Beefing up its desktop publishing systems,
International Business Machines Corp. now offers high-end
publishing software from Interleaf, Inc., of Cambridge, Mass.,
for its PS/2 Model 80 running DOS and the reduced instruction
set RT PC running AIX, IBM's Unix. Interleaf will also be working
on publishing products for a wide range of IBM system, a major
boost for Interleaf. Both IBM Interleaf Publisher and IBM
Interleaf Publishing Series RT PC can produce PostScript files,
or output files that IBM's mainframe publishing programs can
manipulate. At the same time, announced the IBM 4250 Print
Adapter/A, allowing a user to drive the 600-dot-per-inch IBM
4250/II ElectroCompositor with a PS/2 Model 50, 60 or 80. IBM
says Interleaf Publisher will be available in May, for $2,495.
the RT version will be out in October for $6,595. The printer
adapter will also be ready for delivery in May, for $2,650. IBM
will demonstrate the new desktop publishing applications at the
Spring Corporate Electronic Publishing Systems Show and
Conference in Chicago later this month.

In other news from Big Blue, the company says that in the year
since it announced the PS/2 family, it has shipped two million
units. "Last year," said IBM PCmeister William Lowe, "the
Personal System/2 led us to record-setting personal computing
volumes both in the United States and Europe." Lowe said Big Blue
will ship OS/2's Communications Manager and Database Manager in
July, and Presentation Manager in October. IBM's Ned Lautenback
added that since OS/2's Standard Edition began shipping, the
number of applications has been growing toward the year-end goal
of more than 1,000. IBM and Microsoft plan to show off over 100
OS/2 applications at COMDEX/Spring '88 in Atlanta next month.

[***][4/12/88][***]
COMPUTERS IN THE SCHOOLS PROVE INEFFECTIVE
WASHINGTON (NB) -- Despite the "classroom computer revolution,"
few schools use computers effectively and most students are
computer illiterates. That's the conclusion of a congressionally-
mandated study by the National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP). The study -- "Computer Competence: The First National
Assessment" -- tested the computer skills of 24,000 third,
seventh, and 11th graders in the spring of 1986. The study found
that most third graders could recognize a floppy disk, a
keyboard, and a joystick. Nearly all seventh graders recognized
the basic parts of the computer. But only a third of third and
seventh graders and less than half of the 11th graders knew that
the main role of a computer program is "to tell the computer what
to do." Only 30 percent of 11th graders could define "algorithm."

The report by the Educational Testing Service of Lawrence
Township, N.J., concludes that access to computers is too
limited, school curricula don't integrate computer concepts, and
teachers are not well trained. Of 837 school computer
coordinators survey, 32 percent of third grade teachers, 23
percent of seventh grade educators, and 10 percent of 11th grade
coordinators felt they were not well prepared to teach computer
science. Congress established NAEP 19 years ago to conduct
national surveys of various educational skills.

[***][4/12/88][***]
HALF OF ADULTS, THREE-QUARTERS OF CHILDREN USE THEIR COMPUTERS
WASHINGTON (NB) -- According to the Census Bureau, only half of
the adults who have home computers actually use them. On the
other hand, 75 percent of the children with access to a home
computer use it. The study was based on a 1984 survey of computer
use. Of 221 million Americans over age three, the survey found,
more than 20 percent said they used computers in some direct
fashion. People aged 34 to 44 were most likely to own a computer.
Families with children were three times more likely to have a
computer than childless families.

[***][4/12/88][***]
IBM OFFERED CHIPS TO COMPETITORS
NEW YORK (NB) -- Confirming an allegation in a book by a former
Commerce Department officials, International Business Machines
Corp. has acknowledged it has offered to sell memory chips to its
competitors over the past two years. IBM spokesmen denied that
the change in IBM policy was aimed at preventing dependency on
Japan, as claimed by Clyde Prestowitz, a former international
trade specialist with the Commerce Department who negotiated the
U.S.-Japan semiconductor agreement. IBM said it offered to sell
chips to some of its competitors as a way to test that it could
compete internationally with Japan. "The testing of chips in
actual business conditions provides the best gauge of how IBM's
technology stacks up," said the spokesman. The company refused to
identify which competitors got the offers to buy IBM advanced
memory chips.

[***][4/12/88][***]
BETTER WORKING EIGHT-IN-ONE FROM SPINNAKER
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (NB) -- Spinnaker Software Corp. has a new,
integrated program for PCs and clones. Called Better Working
Eight-in-One, it offers an outliner, word processor with spelling
checking, a spreadsheet, a database, communications, graphics,
and a desktop organizer. Commands are consistent across
applications. The program is getting good reviews and the price
is right: $59.95. It takes 256 K of RAM, two drives, a graphics
card, and a modem to get the most out of it.

CONTACT: Spinnaker Software Corp., One Kendall Square, Cambridge
         MA 02139.

[***][4/12/88][***]
N.Y. POLICE BUST HIGH TECH HOOKERS
NEW YORK (NB) -- New York policy have smashed a multimillion
dollar prostitution ring that used a computer to match 4,500
clients with 450 hookers. Operating out of an apartment across
the street from St. Nicholas Church in Queens, the Play Mate
Escort Service used computers to match the requirements of the
customer with the requisite characteristics of the prostitute.
The hookers were equipped with beepers so they could be reached
at all times. Cops raiding the apartment found six phone lines
and 20 phones in service. Dominick Volpe, 40, and his wife,
Sharon, 39, were indicted for prostitution, along with Stuart
Vigoda, 43.

[***][4/12/88][***]
SALES UP, 80386 AND 68020 ON THE WAY, SAYS COMMODORE'S GOULD
NEW YORK (NB) -- Irving Gould, chairman and CEO of Commodore
International Ltd., says sales jumped 15 percent in the quarter
ended March 31. In an interview in the WALL STREET JOURNAL, Gould
added that the PC-compatible 80386-based machine that Commodore
has been selling in Europe will be coming to the U.S. market in
the fall. He also said that an upgraded Amiga, using the Motorola
68020 processor, will be available in both the U.S. and Europe
about the same time. But all is not coming up roses for the once-
frail Commodore. Most of the company's strength is based on
European sales, while U.S. sales are accounting for only about
a quarter or less of the company's revenue.

[***][4/12/88][***]
PC/ATs OFF TO SEE THE WIIS AT WANG
LOWELL, Mass. (NB) -- Wang Laboratories Inc. is offering upgrades
that will allow IBM PC/ATs and AT clones to function as Wang
Integrated Image Systems (WIIS) minicomputer workstations. The
upgrade consists of a monitor, controller, and workstation
software. Wang also announced a link between WIIS and office FAX
machines.

Wang also announced that John Thibault, president and chief
executive officer of the wholly-owned InteCom subsidiary, has
resigned to take another job. InteCom of Allen, Texas, supplied
advanced communications switching systems.

[***][4/12/88][***]
NEWS NIBBLES FROM AROUND THE REGION

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS in Washington,
working with Apple Computer, has developed FireLink, an
integrated program aimed at fire department operations and
running on the Mac.

ALLIANT COMPUTER SYSTEMS CORP. of Littleton, Mass., has acquired
closely-held Raster Technologies of Westford, Mass., for stock
worth $16 million. Raster makes color graphics systems while
Alliant builds mini-supercomputers.

IBM has increased its royalty rights for licenses to use IBM
patents. Under the new rates, licensees will pay up to one
percent of sales revenue on a product using a single IBM patent,
and up to five percent for products using more than one patent.
The old rates had a one percent maximum, regardless of the number
of patents involved.

PRIME COMPUTER of Natick, Mass., says it expects to lay off
employees as a result of its COMPUTERVISION acquisition. Prime
refuses to give a number, but the BOSTON GLOBE says the layoffs
will total 500 to 1,000.

SHL SYSTEMHOUSE of Arlington, Va., and CULLINET are in a joint
venture to market to the federal government. SHL is a systems
integrator of IBM and DEC VAX equipment, while Cullinet supplies
software for the same systems.

STRATUS COMPUTER INC. of Marlboro, Mass., plans a high
performance reduced instruction set computer based on the
Motorola 88000 RISC chip, to be available in the early 1990s.
Status makes fault-tolerant computers for online processing.

MCGRAW-HILL NEWS, a real-time news service for business users
filed by McGraw-Hill's worldwide network of correspondents, is
now available on BIX and Data Resources. McGraw-Hill of New York
owns both BIX, the Byte Magazine bulletin board, and Data
Resources, an economic forecasting service.

THE PENNSYLVANIA LOTTERY in Harrisburg, Pa., has decided to keep
Control Data Corp. of Bloomington, Minn., on the job for another
five years as its computer vendor. The new contract could be
worth $143 million, according to state officials. The
Pennsylvania lottery is the nation's third largest.

DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP. of Maynard, Mass, has introduced its
first optical disk storage system. The WORM (write once, read
many) drive holds two gigabytes of data, or about as much as 80
filing cabinets.



[***][4/12/88][***]
MACS ONLINE WITH CONCOURSE
Hemel Hempstead, Herts (NB) -- Apple Computer has launched a new
service called Apple Concourse for Macintosh users.  The service
uses a Mac icon-like interface giving users the impression they
are using a local Mac file server, whilst the computer itself is
located elsewhere in the UK.

Apple Concourse is available to all Mac users in the UK, and is
also available internationally to users of any X25-compatible
data networks (Datapac, Telenet, Tymnet).  The service will
appeal to North American Mac (as well as UK) users who require
access to European public domain and shareware software, as well
as technical support.

Non-Mac users can also access the service using a text-only
interface.  Technical support will be provided by Alternative
Data, the Scottish computer consultancy which developed the
Concourse service for Apple UK.  Online answers to subscribers
will be supplied within 24 hours and Apple expects to announce
third-party technical support facilities shortly.

Using gateways, Concourse users will be able to communicate with
up to one million other electronic messaging services worldwide.
Both 7- and 8-bit files can be transferred, thereby allowing
program data to be shuttled around the system.

Keith Phillips MD of Apple Computer UK, sees Concourse as a major
breakthrough in online communications.

"Concourse allows users to easily exchange files and messages
worldwide and get fast accurate responses to technical requests,"
he said.  "The service brings the power and flexibility of
desktop communications to every Mac user."

* Concourse software will be available from May onwards at #75-00
from Apple UK dealers.  Registration on the service costs #15-00,
with local access over much of the UK available at 12.5 pence per
minute.

CONTACT:  Apple UK, Eastman Way, Hemel Hempstead,
          Hertfordshire HP2 7HQ.
          Tel: [phone].

[***][4/12/88][***]
PROCOMM PLUS - UK VERSION ARRIVES
Tonbridge, Kent (NB) -- Good news for Procomm fans, the UK
version of Procomm Plus arrives officially on 14 April.
Shareware Marketing, the UK public domain and shareware software
specialists, are selling the package for #49-00 plus #2-00 post
and packing.

"We taken the original 350 page US manual and shrunk it down to
200-plus pages by removing most of the blank space and non-UK
relevant demonstrations," said Steve Townsley of Shareware
Marketing.  "We're also offering technical support via our own
private BBS," he added.

Shareware Marketing is also working with Dortec, the Danish
software house, and will shortly release a UK version of Procomm
Plus which includes full colour viewdata emulation.  No firm UK
price has yet been fixed, but Townsley expect the package to
retail for around the #69-00 mark.  A provisional launch date has
been set for sometime around the June/July mark.

* Procomm Plus is the commercial version of Procomm, the
shareware PC communications package.  The software was launched
in US last January by Datastorm Technologies at $75-00.

CONTACT: SHAREWARE MARKETING, 87 High Street, Tonbridge,
         Kent, TN9 1RX.                Tel: [phone].

[***][4/12/88][***]
TELECOM GOLD - SIX YEARS OLD & 105,000 SUBSCRIBERS
London, UK (NB) -- In celebration of its sixth birthday, Telecom
Gold, the brand leader electronic mail service in the UK, has
announced it now has 105,000 active subscribers.

Phil Madden, Gold's head of sales, is delighted with the figures.
He attributes the service's popularity to the implementation of
the CCITT X400 standard.  X400 will, once other email service
providers implement the feature in their software, allow mail
items to be passed between different systems as easily as if the
subscribers were on the same system.

* New York-based researchers Frost & Sullivan have released a
$2,000 report which predicts a tripling of the world Email market
from $415 million to $1,200 million by 1992.  The 238 page report
predicts this amazing growth will be due to the acceptance of the
X400 standard for inter-system email.

CONTACT: TELECOM GOLD, 60-68 St Thomas Street, London SE1 3QU.
         Tel: UK Internal - 0800-200-700
              International - 01-403-6777

[***][4/12/88][***]
IDC LAUNCHES ANTI-VIRUS PACKAGE
London, UK (NB) -- Computer viruses seem to be in the news
lately, so its not surprising that a number of anti-virus
packages have been produced to prevent any tears when your PC
succumbs to a programmer's joke.

Vaccines against the viral programs aren't new, but one
enterprising London-based company has introduced a novel vaccine
package called Canary.  Users 'inject' the Canary file onto a
suspect disk using the Syringe program disk.  If the Canary file
'dies,' then the disk is infected and should be replaced.

Whilst more technically-minded readers will laugh at such program
names, NEWSBYTES UK reckons that the idea could be a winner in
explaining to non-computer literate users of PCs how the program
operates.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the Canary
vaccination program is only available as a #15-00 add-on for the
company's Protec data security package which costs #170-00.

CONTACT: INTERNATIONAL DATA SECURITY, 37-41 Gower Street,
         London WC1E 6HH.               Tel: [phone].

[***][4/12/88][***]
Z-MODEM FILE TRANSFERS - THE TALE CONTINUES
London, UK (NB) -- Last week NEWSBYTES UK reported on the
unfortunate case of reader Keith Lockstone who discovered that Z-
Modem file transfers onto Bix (Byte magazine's online system)
failed to time out properly.  Lockstone's dropped line data call
eventually timed out after almost 36 hours, running up a bill of
$252-00 on Bix.  It appears that Z-Modem file transfers via data
networks such as PSS, Telenet and Tymnet can hit problems, from
which the system is unable to sense that a user has logged out or
dropped the call.

Lockstone is now waiting from Bix to get back to him, and for his
account to be credited with the cost of the online session.
Strictly speaking, Bix is not liable for these costs, since its
was Lockstone's fault for dropping the call.  Until such time as
Bix assures Lockstone and other users that using Z-Modem on its
system is reliable, NEWSBYTES UK strongly recommends that data
network users avoid using Z-Modem on Bix and any other data
network-accessible host systems.
[***][4/12/88][***]
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
+ BRITBYTES - Bytes of news from around the UK... +
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

ACORN COMPUTERS founder CHRIS CURRY has unveiled his latest
project - Keyline Shopping.  The project calls for the free
distribution of three million freestanding terminals, on which
users key in their shopping requirements.  The book-sized
terminals include a 4-line LCD screen and high-speed modem, which
pipes the data (keyed in offline) to the Keyline computers.  No
charge will be made for the terminals and using the system.
Keyline's running costs will paid for out of commission from
sales, said Curry at the launch last week.

The BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION has threatened publicly to
withdraw multi-million pound business from BRITISH TELECOM,
unless the telecomms carrier reduces what the BBC term
'exorbitant TV and radio distribution charges.'  The BBC reckons
that setting up its own distribution network would cost #25
million, which would take only 2.5 years to pay for itself.

BROTHER has announced its intention to move into the PC-XT and AT
market in the UK.  From June, the company will market PCs
manufactured by Gold Star of Korea.  Prices are expected to
between 15 and 25 per cent greater than equivalent Amstrad
machines.

MANDARIN SOFTWARE of Macclesfield has announced two software
marketing deals with JAWX INTERNATIONAL of France, and RED RAT of
Manchester.  The deal allows Mandarin to distribute Jawx's STOS,
an Atari ST extended operating system package, and Red Rat's
Rally Run for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga.


MERCURY COMMUNICATIONS of London has applied to OFTEL, the
government-appointed telecoms watchdog, for a review of its
interconnect agreement with British Telecom.  The request has
been made to facilitate the introduction of more competitive
services.

PSION of London has secured a major contract with MACYS, the US
department store chain.  The deal allows Macys to sell the Psion
Organiser handheld computer at 15 of its stores in the US.

TANDATA COMMUNICATIONS of Malvern has won a further major
contract from the BANK OF SCOTLAND.  Tandata will supply and
install Td2500 terminals and printers to the bank's 438-strong
branch network.  The installations will give the bank branches
access to Prestel's CEPT/Streama secure printing (and file
transfer) facilities.